Sunday, November 7, 2010

To: All White House Staff Subject: A humbling moment

All: in light of this week's results, I wanted to say a few words before speaking to the nation. As Jon F wrote in the speech I'm about to give, we took a shellacking, and I'm humbled. Humbled that we lost sight of the fact that leadership isn't just about passing sweeping, long-overdue legislation. Humbled that we couldn't communicate that extending healthcare to 95% of the American population was an indisputable moral imperative that the Republicans, by the way, are never going to manage to repeal. And humbled that we didn't find a way to unite not only the majority of people who support reform, but also the billionaire backers of the Tea Party, Glenn Beck, Rupert Murdoch, the millions who'd never vote Democratic anyway, and the delusional clowns who think I'm a Kenyan-born Sikh fundamentalist Catalan separatist. And by "we", I mean Nancy Pelosi. Point is, I didn't fight so hard to win office just to stay popular and keep winning office, but to do what's right, which we're doing. So let's move forward in a spirit of bipartisanship, extending the hand of friendship and collegiality to those on the other side who are, let's face it, totally wrong. Humbly, Barack